You cannot, and never should, ‘digital’ something for someone

If some bright spark anywhere, no matter how well paid they are, suggests that you ‘digital’ a piece of work for them, or a process, then walk out of the room. Preferably with your dignity intact. Digital work takes as much thought, as much care, as print, or performance. This isn’t to say that creating digital versions of pre-existing works is a bad thing. This rule of thumb is about not working with people who constantly pronounce the word ‘digital’ with audible quotation marks. They’re all hell to work with, each of them has their unique and adorable way of completely fucking up your life. They don’t understand what they want. They don’t understand what the audience wants. They don’t understand what you can do. They don’t understand what the work can do. They are what the platonic ideal of Ignorance aspires to become when it grows up. So just don’t work with them. Unless they offer you a fuck-ton of money which would leave you in the black for the next six months. If that’s the case, take the money and use it to fund your actual practice. (Sometimes dignity means not eating canned food and not living in a cardboard box.)


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